Ingredients, Proximate Composition, Colour and Textural Properties of Commercial Malaysian Fish Balls

Abstract

Fish balls are the popular value-added products in Malaysia. This study was carried out to determine quality characteristic associated with fish balls available in Malaysia markets. A total of six brands of Malaysian fish balls were collected, recorded and analyzed for list of ingredients and some physicochemical properties which include proximate composition, color and texture (folding test and Texture Profile Analysis). The results showed that there was a wide variation in the types of ingredients used in producing of fish balls. The study also reveals that there is a new trend of using surimi as substation for fish meat in Malaysian fish balls production. The price of currently fish balls varying from US$ 1.29-2.78/kg, respectively. The proximate composition from different brands of fish balls analyzed were found to be significantly different (p<0.05). The moisture, protein, fat, ash and carbohydrate contents of fish balls samples varied between 73.80-88.71%, 7.54-9.89%, 0.13-1.75%, 1.61-3.40% and 1.17-13.58%, respectively. The color value for lightness (L), redness (a) and yellowness (b) of the fish balls also significantly different (p<0.05), ranging from 69.61 - 77.96, -2.02 - 0.33 and 15.66 - 19.70, respectively. All of samples of fish balls showed AA grade of folding test which indicated that the texture of fish balls were acceptable for consumer preference. This result showed that Malaysian fish balls produced from different manufacturers were different in ingredient used, chemical composition and color, however these differences was not effect to the folding test of the samples.